eventually soulmates meet (they have the same hiding place)
by belleways
Summary: Femme!Twelve x Clara. After regeneration, the Doctor has done everything she can to experience life all over again as a woman––except one thing. Clara helps with the last bit, and together they discover their favorite place in the universe.


It has been two weeks, three days, and technically twelve centuries since The Doctor became a woman.

And Clara is exhausted.

You see, The Doctor's never been a woman before–– so he (she pauses, corrects herself, _she_) wants to try _everything_ from a female perspective. She wants to see the universe from the eyes of a woman (and a ginger, incidentally, which evidently The Doctor has wanted to be for some time). So they've been traipsing across the universe nonstop since the regeneration, and Clara swears she's never needed sleep like she does now. There are shutters behind her eyelids and they're barely staying open. It's taking every inch of willpower (and musclepower) in her to remain standing (or running, as the case most often is). She hasn't been in a bed in–– well, she doesn't know how long, really, but it feels like an eternity. The Doctor, of course, _tells_ her she doesn't have to come, she can stay and rest in the TARDIS, but since when has Clara ever left The Doctor to his own devices? (_Her_, _her _own devices.) Nothing good ever comes from The Doctor being left alone. Clara knows that better than anyone.

"Doctor!" she shouts, gasping for air, holding her sides as if they might collapse if she lets go even for a moment. "Where are we now? Wait, is this–– _is this_–– Is this _really_ the last place you wanted to visit? Really?" Her words die on her tongue as she stands (_finally_, they've been running ever since they stepped out of the TARDIS no sooner than ten minutes ago), mute, her already-large eyes bugging out of their fleshy sockets. "Well, color my gasts flabbered," Clara whispers sarcastically, an afterthought, and The Doctor laughs (somehow it's always the same laugh, she thinks to herself with satisfaction–– new bodies, new faces, new dimensions in space and time, but always, always the same familiar laugh).

"Clara," she trills, indulging herself in a grin, "Welcome to my favorite place in all of space and time." She throws her hands out in a grand gesture, sonic screwdriver twirling between her fingers.

"But," Clara starts, brows furrowing in confusion, "this is the way to the cloud. This is–– "

"Where I met you, of course!" she declares, with a meaningfully triumphant look. "Or–– well, a version of you, anyway. Where else did you think I'd want to go last? The best for last, they always say. Or, at least. _Someone _always says. Who knows who said it first." She trounces forward, pulling on the hidden ladder, then turns back to Clara. "Actually, I said it first. Long story. Remind me to tell you sometime."

Clara swears she gets whiplash from The Doctor's whimsical, capricious verbal spoutings. She shakes her head and follows after her, climbing up the suspended, magical ladder that she now remembers so well. She remembers how she felt that day. The way her heart fluttered, the way her fingers thrummed with anxiety as she curled them around each rung, the indents left on her bottom lip from the nervous grinding of her teeth on its flimsy exterior. She feels these things as if she'd felt them yesterday (perhaps she _did _feel them yesterday, time doesn't make sense to her anymore). Her stomach twists and her knees feel heavier than normal and it isn't just due to exhaustion. It's something else. Something she didn't feel before, or yesterday, or ever. Something new. Something scary.

By the time they reach the top of the cloud, The Doctor is standing at its center, appraising its circumference. When she lifts her head and sees that Clara has arrived, she steps toward her with an air of smugness. "Ah, took you long enough," she declares, wiping the grin off her face after Clara shoots her a tetchy glare. "Right," she mutters apologetically, but only for a moment–– snapping back almost immediately to her prior (innocent) haughtiness. "Same as it was before, I venture. Down to the last molecule. Or, thereabouts. An exact replica would technically be impossible, but, then, so are you, and yet here you are. My impossible girl." Their eyes hover, sparkle in the distant twilight, fix to one another as if on a static axis. They look at each other for a second too long, and The Doctor shifts her feet, voice springing back into the casual jauntiness it typically possesses. "I figured we could rest here a while. You're tired, by the looks of it. Got a great balm for that back in the TARDIS, actually, clears the bags right out from under your eyes. I'll fetch it for you if you like–– "

"_Doctor_," Clara simmers, crossly. "Let's just rest a moment, okay?" Pause. Realization. Paranoia. "Do I really have bags under my eyes?"

"Quite."

"Are they bad?"

"'Fraid so."

"Ah."

"Not to worry, you'll feel better after a nap. Especially since you'll be napping on a cloud."

Clara's about to tumble down into the foamy mist and indeed take full advantage of the world's best pillow, but she sees something in The Doctor's eyes that makes her hesitate. "Doctor?" she presses, gently. "What's the matter? You've got that look."

She feigns ignorance. "What look?"

"You know, the _look_. Come on, I'm tired and grouchy. Out with it, then." Clara crosses her arms over her chest and plants her feet firmly (can you plant your feet firmly in a _cloud_, she wonders) on the ground, making it clear that she won't budge until The Doctor has divulged her seemingly troublesome thoughts.

"Well, it's–– I've done everything I possibly can in a woman's body, that I've wanted to do. But–– I, well–– "

Understanding dawns on Clara's face, ripples from her chin to eyebrows to make her hair stand on end (and not necessarily in a bad way). "Doctor, did you bring me here to _seduce _me?" she asks, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, a bubble popping somewhere in her chest. The Doctor, of course, turns a shade of red not totally unalike his (her?) time as a victim of the Crimson Horror, which causes Clara to bite back a chortle. "Well?" she prods, taking a step forward, her previous lethargy melting off her frame with unprecedented rapidity.

"Clara," The Doctor stammers, backing away slightly as Clara advances. "Those things I said, when the Cyberman got into my head, well–– some of it was… perhaps… slightly accurate. And you're right, you're absolutely right, I would never say those things to you–– aloud–– but things have happened in my life to the people I care about, things that aren't so nice. And I've learned to talk about my feelings–– not all of them, obviously, but the important ones–– while I still have the chance. I didn't bring you here to seduce you, Clara, but I do want to tell you–– that you have spent a thousand lives living for me, saving me, and you have saved me in a thousand ways. But there is one way in particular that you have saved me, and it's–– I thought I was going to be alone forever, after–– what happened with the Ponds. But then you… happened. And you saved me. My impossible girl."

"You're shivering," Clara observes, once she's gotten closer.

"Yes, it would appear that I am. Fancy that. You know, shivering itself is a phenomenon linked to the nervous system in an extremely fascinating way, remind me to–– "

"Doctor, do you want me to kiss you?"

"Now, _Clara_, I never said–– "

"You didn't have to _say_," she finishes for her, a devious look settling onto her face. "Right, then," Clara starts, "close your eyes."

It takes a moment, but The Doctor does close her eyes, and when she does, Clara takes a moment to take her in, all of her, in the most private and intimate way she's ever been able to; the new body, the new face, the new wisps of hair clouding the face, rustling in the gentle breeze, dusting over the dips and valleys of her chin and cheeks and nose, which are white and pert and accented by little red blushes–– partly from the wind, partly from something else. Clara's hand weaves its way up the side of The Doctor's face, anchoring over her (suddenly tense) jawbone. "I was born to save you," Clara whispers into The Doctor's ear, with a simultaneously sad and happy, subdued and vibrant, paradoxical smile. "I was born to _love _you, too." The Doctor makes as if she's going to say something, but Clara silences her with a kiss, pressing their lips together for the first time since… well, the first time they met.

"You–– do that well," The Doctor breathes, breath sweet over Clara's mouth.

"Want me to do it again?"

"Yes, actually, I think I would like that very much."

Neither of them are sure quite how it happened, but they've sunk down onto the misty surface of the cloud, bodies tangled and submerged in the light luster of fog. The Doctor stares up at Clara with dark eyes; eyes that have seen too much, suffered too much, loved too much. Her eyes are anxious, careworn, and tired. _So_ tired. Clara brushes a thumb beneath The Doctor's left eye, absorbed by the tenderness of the flesh there, the softness of the skin, the–– fragility. Yes, Clara does sometimes forget that The Doctor is, all things considered, _fragile_. Breakable. Fleshy. A network of veins, cartilage, bones, and blood. She can feel her pulse, beating thickly beneath her face. She can see the veins leading to the eyes. She can see so much, from up close.

She can see the whole universe.

"This is mine too, you know," Clara says, faintly.

"Your what?" The Doctor asks, with a touch of diffidence.

"My favorite place in the universe."


End file.
